“I'll tell you why. I never spoke to you but once before in my life, but I made up my mind then what kind of a man you was. Maybe you don't remember it, Judge, but two years ago this comin' December that there Law and Order League fixed up to run me out of this town. They didn't succeed, but they did have me indicted by the Grand Jury, and I come up before you and pleaded guilty--they had the evidence on me all right. You fined me, you fined me the limit, and I guess if I hadn't 'a' had the money to pay the fine I'd 'a' gone to jail. But the main point with me was that you treated me like a lady. “I know what I am good and well, but I don't like to have somebody always throwin' it up to me. I've got feelin's the same as anybody else has. You made that little deputy sheriff quit shovin' me round and you called me Mizzis Cramp to my face, right out in court. I've been Old Mallie Cramp to everybody in this town so long I'd mighty near forgot I ever had a handle on my name, until you reminded me of it. You was polite to me and decent to me, and you acted like you was sorry to see a white woman fetched up in court, even if you didn't say it right out. I ain't forgot that. I ain't ever goin' to forget it. And awhile ago, when I was all beat out and discouraged, I said to myself that if there was one man left in this town who could maybe help me to keep my promise to that dead girl, Judge William Pitman Priest was the man. That's why I'm here.” “I'm sorry, ma'am, sorry fur you and sorry fur that dead child,” said Judge Priest slowly. “I wish I could help you. I wish I knew how to advise you. But I reckin those gentlemen were right in whut they said to you to-day. I reckin probably their elders would object to them openin' up their churches, under the circumstances. And I'm mightily afraid I ain't got any influence I could bring to bear in any quarter. Did you go to Father Minor? He's a good friend of mine; we was soldiers together in the war--him and me. Mebbe--” “I thought of him,” said the woman hopelessly; “but you see, Judge, Viola didn't belong to his church. She was raised a Protestant, she told me so. I guess he couldn't do nothin'.” in. “Ah-hah, I see,” said the judge, and in his perplexity he bent his head and rubbed his broad expanse of pink bald brow fretfully, as though to stimulate thought within by friction without. His left hand fell into the litter of documents upon his desk. Absently his fingers shuffled them back and forth under his eyes. He straightened himself alertly. “Was it stated--was it specified that a preacher must hold the funeral service over that dead girl?” he inquired. The woman caught eagerly at the inflection that had come into his voice.